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As the sputtering negotiations with Iran and North Korea illustrate, the
nuclear nonproliferation regimen is failing. More distressing, there is no
likely improvement or replacement.

Part of the failure is due to countries deciding for their own strategic
reasons to develop nuclear weapons. India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea
made such a strategic decision. At one time, Iraq and Libya were trying to
join them.

But perhaps even more problematic are the growing use of nuclear energy and
the interrelatedness of the fuel cycle for nuclear power and the base
material for nuclear weapons.

Nuclear power has much to recommend itself as an energy source. After high
capital start-up expenses, it produces clean energy at competitive
operating costs. Nuclear power currently provides about 16 percent of the
world's electricity, and tends to supply an even higher percentage in
developed countries. Nuclear power production is growing globally.

But the same process that enriches uranium sufficiently to make electricity
can enrich it sufficiently to make a bomb. And plutonium generated as a
byproduct of nuclear energy production can also be used to make a nuclear
weapon.

Countries that control their own nuclear energy fuel cycle have taken a
giant stride toward the ability to make nuclear weapons. And the broader
the distribution of the nuclear energy fuel cycle, the greater the
possibility that some of the basic bomb-making material might find its way
to terrorists.

This makes the bargain struck in the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty not much
of a protection against the spread of nuclear weapons. In that treaty,
those without nuclear weapons agreed not to acquire them in exchange for
assistance in developing their civilian nuclear industry. That includes the
ability to establish the full fuel cycle for nuclear electricity.

This is at the heart of the dispute with Iran and a major stumbling block
with North Korea.

The West does not trust that Iran will not divert the fuel cycle for
nuclear energy to make the basic material for nuclear weapons. It does not
object to Iran getting into the nuclear power business. But Britain, France
and Germany have been asking Iran to forgo control of its nuclear fuel
cycle in exchange for improved economic ties. Russia has offered to provide
the enriched uranium to produce electricity and then collect the
plutonium-laden waste.

With North Korea, the United States is, at this point, unwilling to trust
it with nuclear energy at all, irrespective of what ostensible controls
exist on the fuel cycle.

The nuclear energy fuel cycle is now widely seen as a huge vulnerability in
the international nonproliferation structure. But there does not appear to
be a realistic fix for it.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, has proposed that there be a sort of international utility that
controls the fuel cycle for all nuclear energy worldwide. Existing nuclear
fuel producers, however, are highly unlikely to be willing to relinquish
their role.

Graham Allison, in his book Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable
Catastrophe, proposed that instead existing fuel producers should offer to
supply nations wanting to get into the nuclear energy business at less than
half the cost of supplying themselves. Any nation spurning such a generous
offer, Allison asserts, could be presumed to be seeking to develop a
nuclear weapon.

But this ignores energy self-sufficiency as an attribute of national
sovereignty. Why should other nations voluntarily put themselves in the
position with respect to nuclear power that the West finds itself it with
respect to oil? If we don't like the possibility of oil being used as a
weapon or for diplomatic leverage, why should we expect other nations to
assume the same vulnerability with respect to nuclear power sources?

And that get to the crux of why the current nonproliferation regimen is
unsustainable: it treats nations differently. Some get to have nuclear
weapons and others don't. And now it is proposed that some get to have
uranium and plutonium production facilities and others don't. A
fast-developing world is unlikely to long accept, or abide by, hegemonic
rules.

The failure of the nonproliferation regimen and the lack of any plausible
fix or successor put a premium on defensive measures for the United States.

That means moving forward as quickly as possible on missile defenses and
improved inspection and detection capabilities and protocols.

At this point, improved defenses seem more likely to produce increments of
security than treaties or diplomacy.

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